A Compulsion

Thanks to google and regular blogging it is no longer necessary for me to have a detailed memory of the garden. That seems to be creeping into other faucets of life. Oh well.

How long has it been since the dead hemlocks were logged and I was left with heaps of rubbish? Spring of 2012, four years ago.

So four years ago the plan was to burn all that rubbish. I must have gotten distracted. Then a newly denuded hillside sprang immediately back to life. I must have gotten overwhelmed and distracted. Possibly there were other priorities. A big chunk of land next to the cozy cabin was left unattended.

Four and a half years later I had a spare afternoon and decided to wander down there and at least start making paths for a garden expansion. Burning was not on my mind. That wood was so old and likely so wet, a fire would have been hard to get going. I could just start stomping on all that rubbish, get it closer to the ground and help speed up the decomposition. I could do a little editing while I was in there.

Then as seems to be my way, I became possessed. What started as simple path making and a five year plan turned into a full on editing onslaught of half an acre of wild new growth encased in a blanket of blackberry with layer of woody rubbish and rotten logs underneath.

I have been finding good things. The plan is to steer mother nature towards an oak and magnolia forest with an understory of pleasing native wild flowers.

Perhaps, what I hope is a groundhog with three hefty holes spread across this slope will decide it is time to move.

A compulsion to edit this slope may have taken hold, but it is still a five year plan. I know it will take that long for the forest to regrow and shade out the blackberry. It will take that long for the sapling stumps left over from annual lopping to stop trying to regrow.

This five year plan will require a late spring and end of summer editing to be most effective. I can't get distracted anymore.

This section of forest was damaged during construction and also experienced a flush of regrowth. It has been edited at least once a year for the last three or four. It is looking much better and beginning to stabilize. The blackberry is almost gone. It is also the connection between the Tall Flower Meadow and the new pathways into the rest of the forest.

My compulsion is made possible by the fact that come June, the meadow gardens are pretty much left alone to do their thing. There is no fussing over them. I have time to expand.

You can't weed this and I only mow when necessary or if company is coming.

Tomorrow I will stroll the gardens slowly and harvest some fine produce from the roadside vegetable garden. That is all there is to do. Later, I can feed this little compulsion.

These gardens are edited in the spring and set in motion. At a certain point you have to just step back.

It's near August and we have ignition. The Tall Flower Meadow is about to do its thing. And now I pray, please no hail, no wicked crushing storms. I wait all year for this. A perky meadow is a mighty fine thing.